You Won’t Believe What the Salt Air Did to this All Original 1968 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28

A True Survivor

Looking at this truly unique Butternut Yellow 1968 Z/28, you’d think it might just have a “back from the edge of hell” story. You’d be right.

Owner Daniel Cannuli is a diehard Chevy guy who is deep in the art of numbers and documentation. He loves the hunt and the research it takes to make sure that what he has is absolutely original. (His documentation books on this car run well over 200 pages.)

He wanted this Z/28 to stay the same as the day it rolled out of the Chevrolet plant in Norwood, Ohio, back in 1968. Today it is, but it might not have been.

As Dan explains, “My girlfriend and I were finishing lunch on October 6, 2015, when we heard a crackling sound outside. I opened the front door to see the side of her garage on fire. As I went around the corner, I could see the electrical panel burning. My Z/28 was inside the garage, right beside the fire!

“After she called 911, I grabbed the hose and began to try to put the fire out,” Dan continues. “As the garage became engulfed, I realized we had to move the cars.”

Dan feared that the Z might already be gone. “In a panic, I hit the button on the garage door opener, and to my surprise, it opened. I told myself as the door went up that if there were major flames, I wouldn’t enter. I wasn’t going to set myself on fire to save a car.”

The entire garage was full of smoke, but no flames. So he held his breath, closed his eyes, and felt his way to the door handle. He opened the door, jumped inside, and took a big breath—of smoke.

“I wasn’t thinking and didn’t realize that smoke would enter the car. I thought I was safe to breathe.”

Dan had just put the car back together the day before. “I had taken the right front wheel, the hood, the right fender, and front bumper off. I had checked to make sure the second hidden VIN was present under the heater fan motor. It was, and I had taken video and pictures. Then I spent 8 to 10 hours putting it all back together and finished at 2 a.m. I drove it around the block a couple times to make sure everything was OK. I had left the keys in the ignition, which I never do. I guess I was tired.”

And now the garage was aflame. Dan managed to start the car, all the while choking on the smoke he had breathed in.

“I backed it out, unable to see a thing, and slid it out into the middle of the street and around the corner. I was lucky no cars—or a fire engine—were coming. When I got back, the gas meter had melted to the ground and the gas line began to shoot a flame through the garage sidewall right where the gas tank of the car would have been.”

Dan continued to try and douse the flames until the fire department arrived and put the fire out. He thought to himself later that if he hadn’t gotten the car back together, he would have just driven it off the jackstand and dragged it down the street in reverse. “Anything to just get it out.”

Dan’s Camaro is one of the 7,199 Z/28s built that year out of the 235,147 Camaros produced, a little more than three percent of total Camaro production. The engine, transmission, and rearend are all documented as original to this car. During his thorough cleaning of the car, Dan found that the casting and assembly dates are May 1968, and are all within nine days of each other.

It was ordered with the Special Performance 302, which designates it as a Z/28. “In the NCRS data report, the dealer code shows it was ordered for overseas distribution, possibly the Netherlands,” Dan says. “We think it was ordered but never picked up. The car sat at Central Chevrolet in Fremont, California, and was used as a demonstrator by dealership salesmen. They put 18,590 miles on the car before it was purchased on March 26, 1969, by Richard Ward Anderson. The fact that it was registered in California in 1969 explains why the original license plate begins with a Y.”

Options originally ordered on the car include a U34 walnut woodgrain steering wheel, a U69 AM/FM push-button radio, a D80 front and rear spoiler package, and a G80 Positraction rear axle with 3.73 gears. It also came with the M21 Muncie close-ratio four-speed transmission and J50/52 power front disc brakes. Both of these were mandatory options when purchasing a Z/28.

When Dan found the Camaro, it had been stored in a couple different locations for many years. It ended up in St. George, Utah, which is where he bought the car.

What struck him was the strange patina on the paint and body. Expecting the worst, Dan found that the car was actually in very sound and original shape. The painted surfaces were etched and corroded from long-term storage in the Pebble Beach, California, area (near the Pacific Ocean). But the underside had no rust, and there was only light surface rust on the thick steel parts. The paint was the original Norwood-applied Butternut Yellow.

Since buying the Z, Dan has been documenting the car’s unusual life, including a search for the original owner. “I believe Mr. Anderson may have had homes in both Santa Rosa and Pebble Beach and saw the car for sale at Central Chevrolet in Fremont.” Among Dan’s extensive research notes on the car is a copy of a “For Sale” ad from the Jan. 1, 1969 Fremont Argus newspaper, which includes the car and its VIN.

“I have many receipts of parts purchased and service work performed in both cities,” he adds. “I have the Chevrolet Motor Division ‘Application for Transfer of Warranty’ sheet. It shows the original date the vehicle was placed in service 6-18-68, the purchase date of 3-26-69, and the date of application for warranty transfer of 4-12-69. I hope someone will see this article and be able to put me in touch with Mr. Anderson, a relative or friend, or maybe even a former employee of Fremont Chevrolet, which closed a few years ago. Maybe we can gain more history on this great car.”

Dan’s Z/28 shows 56,850 original miles. His nearly two dozen service work receipts show a mileage of 18,590 in April 1969, and 53,347 miles on August 15, 1975. The car then sat in storage for more than 25 years, and this is where the story has a great big hole. Dan purchased the car with 54,610 miles. The last registration tag on the rear plate is from 1989, and the registration slip shows it was still registered in Anderson’s name.

So, as you might imagine, Dan is trying to piece together this time period, which adds up to about half the car’s life. Being a fanatic for detail helped Dan with his documenting of the Z.

Under the hood, all is original, except for some service items like the belts, hoses, oil and air filters. The carburetor, intake manifold, heads, exhaust manifolds, distributor, generator, coil, starter, voltage regulator, fan clutch, and starter/solenoid are as-built and date-coded.

The same goes underneath. The four spiral shocks have their parts stickers still intact, and the front coils have their parts decals. The date coding even extends to the brake master cylinder, vacuum booster, water pump, smog equipment, horns, steering box, and pitman and idler arms. All the driven accessories have their original deep-groove pulleys, and all the hose clamps are dated to this car except for one.

The Camaro retains its entire original exhaust system, including the transverse muffler. The rear brakes are all original. Dan had the front pads drilled out and relined to retain the original steel backing. All five wheels are dated May 1968. Four are original; one is a correct date-code replacement for a bent original.

The documented parts list continues with the standard black interior. Dan even found the factory tags on both front and rear carpet dated May 1968.

Other detailing includes the original tire pressure sticker that is still intact on the back of the glovebox door. In the trunk are the original jack assembly and spare, with original jacking instructions and Positraction sticker inside the trunk lid.

Dan has essentially crawled over every inch of this car in search of part numbers to verify its originality. Along the way, he invested hundreds of hours to get it back to running condition.

“After replacing the timing chain assembly, rebuilding the carburetor three times, rebuilding and recurving the distributor, valve adjustment, fixing an intake manifold vacuum leak, and a full service, it began to come alive. Then I serviced the transmission and rearend, brake lines, and so on.”

Dan feels that it is a privilege to own a car like this. “I get asked quite often if I am going to restore or at least repaint this car,” he says. “At this time, I think I am going to leave it as is. This phrase gets used a lot, but really, it’s only original once.”

According to Dan, the help of his online buddies at the Camaro Research Group (www.camaros.org) was critical in getting his documentation done. He especially thanks Charlie Clifton, “who has come to my rescue more than once.”

Dan’s Z/28 has been certified by Jerry MacNeish of Camaro Hi-Performance, and it also received Heritage status at the 2015 Muscle Car & Corvette Nationals, scoring 2,722 out of a possible 2,980.4 points.

It’s a pretty amazing life story, one that came so close to disaster, but survived to prove what is real in the world of 1968 Z/28s.

Editor’s note: If you can contribute to the car’s history, please email Dan at djc1@sonic.net.

Dan Cannuli’s Camaro shows the scars of decades of storage near the ocean, yet beneath the surface the car is remarkably sound.

Some service items have been replaced, but most of the engine’s hard parts—including the full exhaust system—are factory original.

How often do you see Z/28s—even California cars—with their smog equipment intact?

The interior’s like-new condition doesn’t seem to jibe with the pockmarked paint, but it goes to show how salt affects ferrous metal and leaves vinyl pretty much alone.

Original pedals show the wear that comes from driving 56,000 miles.

The Goodyears are reproduction, but the Rally wheels are factory equipment.

Close-up views of the grille (with original T3 headlamp) and header-panel emblem illustrate the salt air’s damage to the Camaro’s finish. But unlike a car that was driven on salted roads, this one is just rusty on top, not underneath.

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